Recently, Leighton Flowers linked to an exchange between apostate/Street Epistemologist Douglas Letkeman and lay Calvinist Chris Williams:
Flowers prefaced the link with the following claim:
Soteriology 101This video demonstrates how one’s Calvinistic theology negatively impacts their Apologetic methodology. This Athiest [sic] is able to make the Calvinist appear completely irrational and contradictory. This only hurts our evangelistic and apologetic efforts as a church and I believe it’s the reason Calvinism always dies back out after it resurges. It can’t hold water against an honest critique and must eventually be abandoned by objective and rational Bible believers who desire to engage the unbelief of others.
To begin with, it's easier to ask questions than answer questions. That format puts the atheist at a tactical advantage. If Flowers bothered to watch other video exchanges between Street Epistemologists and garden-variety Christians, the same imbalance would be on display. That's equally true when the Christian respondent is a freewill theist.
Here's a representative sample of Doug's questions and statements:
Can I desire to repent?Can I desire to pray to God?How can I make that first step to stop that suppression in me?So if I don't have the ability to change myself, how do I get the desire to do so?The ball is in God's court–not mineSo there's nothing I can do.Do you think God predestined my suppression that I wouldn't believe?So if God predestined my unbelief, am I still free to choose God?If I'm not one of God's elect, there's nothing I can do to become a Christian.So you could have chosen a different god?You had no choice.You're a pawn, you're like a robot.We are pawns in a chess game.You are just a cog in a machine.Is it my fault if I can't control my desires?You're saying that in my dead-in-sins fallen nature I can ask God to do things for me.I define freewill this way: the ability to do otherwiseIndependent of God can I desire God?Internal critique: I can set my worldview aside and put it on the shelf and I can enter your worldview and analyze it.This is why I think Calvinism is terrible. It forces you to enter into this cognitive dissonance.Is there any chance you're deceived about your eternal salvation?Could you say without any doubt that you're going to heaven?100% certain you're going to heaven?But [if I] don't believe today, was I deceived back then?Two years from now I could completely turn around in my beliefs and ultimately I could be one of God's elect.Even though I could blaspheme the Holy Spirit right now.
1. To some extent the conversation went in circles. One source of confusion was failure to distinguish between predestination and spiritual inability. Spiritual inability is a narrower category than predestination. Spiritual inability refers to a type of psychological indisposition. According to spiritual inability, the unregenerate are unreceptive to the Gospel.
Spiritual inability doesn't entail that an unregenerate sinner can't pray to God. Spiritual inability doesn't prevent some of them from going to church, reciting corporate prayers, singing hymns, &c.
In addition, you don't have to believe in God to pray to God. Unbelievers can and sometimes do pray a hypothetical prayer: "God, if you exist, please help me!"
If God has predestined that Chairman Mao not pray to him, then Chairman Mao can't pray to him by virtue of predestination, but not by virtue of spiritual inability.
2. God predestined St. Paul not to believe in Jesus until the Damascus Road epiphany. God predestined St. Paul to believe in Jesus as a result of the Damascus Road epiphany. If someone is currently an unbeliever or currently unregenerate, it doesn't entail that they are reprobate.
3. If freewill is defined as the ability to do otherwise, then nothing can happen contrary to what God has predestined.
However, the concept of freewill didn't fall from the sky. That's a philosophical issue with different definitions. John Martin Fischer doesn't think libertarian freedom is necessary for moral responsibility.
Even among libertarian philosophers, not all define freewill in terms of freedom to do otherwise. Some define freedom in terms of the agent as the ultimate source of his choices.
In addition, Robert Kane, a preeminent libertarian philosopher, defines choice in these terms:
A choice is the formation of an intention or purpose to do something. It resolves uncertainty and indecision in the mind about what to do. Four Views on Free Will (Blackwell 2007), 33.
On that view, it's meaningful to say an agent chose God even if he was unable not to choose God.
4. Does predestination make humans robots? If by "robot" you mean the kind of artificially intelligent robots that frequent science fiction, then there's no psychological contrast between robotic agents and human agents.
5. Does predestination make us pawns in a chess game? Like analogies in general, the comparison is partly true and partly false. God is the chess player who has a game plan. We do everything in accordance with his game plan.
But literal pawns are mindless, inanimate objects. There's where the comparison breaks down.
6. Is a psychopath blameless that he can't control his desire to torture coeds to death? Isn't his lack of impulse control evil in itself?
7. In what respect does Calvinism generate cognitive dissonance? Perhaps that refers back to the confusion caused by failure to distinguish between predestination and spiritual inability. That's not cognitive dissonance but a lack of conceptual clarity in drawing different but internally consistent distinctions.
8. Or does Doug imagine that there's something about belief in predestination that generates cognitive dissonance? If so, what?
Consider temporal loops in science fiction–where characters keep repeating the same actions. They are bound to make the same future choices. Since they don't remember what they did the last time, they can't do anything different. But is that incoherent?
9. Most naturalists subscribe to physicalism and physical determinism. Do they think that generates cognitive dissonance?
10. If a professing believer was sure he was going to heaven, but he loses his faith and dies an unbeliever, then he was mistaken. However, salvation isn't contingent on having absolute confidence in your salvation. You can doubt your salvation but still be saved. Conversely, backsliders can be restored to faith and fellowship.
An apostate was self-deceived if he used to be sure that he was heavenbound, but salvation doesn't require 100% certainty. You can't be self-deceived in that regard unless you never doubted your salvation. Salvation isn't in the first instance a self-referential conviction but a conviction regarding Jesus. So Doug's line of questioning is a red herring.
11. If the unforgivable sin is defined as blaspheming the Holy Spirit, then election can't override the unforgivable sin. By definition, an unforgivable sin is…unforgivable! Rather, the elect are predestined not to commit that an unforgivable sin.
Leighton's claim to the contrary notwithstanding, Doug failed to show that Calvinism is contradictory and irrational. Leighton's assessment shows how poorly he understood the position he used to profess.
How can a moron (Flowers) be a systematic theologian with only a semester in the Biblical languages?
ReplyDeleteKnowledgeable Calvinists don't find these objections as having any weight. I've addressed these types of objections in my blogpost Detecting and Finding God. But here's my specific responses to these specific questions:
ReplyDelete// Can I desire to repent?//
There's a true desire to do so, and a false desire to do so. Just as there is a true desire to seek God and false desire. If you're referring to true desiring and seeking after God, that would depend on whether you're regenerated or not. But neither of us know that. Since regeneration is invisible and spiritual. Nevertheless, you're morally responsible to respond to God's offers of salvation. Since you don't know you're not regenerated (i.e. you might be regenerated) you might as well attempt to seek salvation. Even if it's a false seeking, God may have providentially ordained your false seeking to turn into a true seeking. Or, it might be a true seeking that's already a result of past regeneration you're unaware of. So, you have every rational incentive and reason seek God's offer of salvation.
// Can I desire to pray to God?//
Yes [as Steve pointed out]. The unregenerate can pray. God sometimes even answers their prayers in the affirmative. That's different than asking whether God readily accepts and approves of your prayers to the same degree as He does the regenerate, or to the even higher degree of those who are already saved (and so also already regenerate). All those who are saved are regenerate, but not all those who are regenerate are yet saved. All the non-elect are unregenerate, but not all the unregenerate are non-elect. Since, all the elect [excluding Christ] were once unregenerate as well.
// How can I make that first step to stop that suppression in me?//
You can't. But you can attempt to respond to the Gospel as described above. Knowing that God promises that those who seek Him with all their hearts will find Him, and knowing that you don't know that you're unregenerate and non-elect. For all you know, you might be elect. You might also already be regenerate as well.
// So if I don't have the ability to change myself, how do I get the desire to do so?//
For ultimate spiritual good? No, you don't have that ability. How do you get that desire? Ask God to grant you the [true] desire. Your asking might itself be God planting that desire within you. Same thing if you find in yourself a desire to have the desire.
// The ball is in God's court–not mine//
Ultimately yes, but regeneration is an invisible operation of God. So, while it's true that salvation is ultimately in God's hands, you have a moral responsibility to focus on attempting to appropriate that salvation. If you find youself having difficulty to believe Christianity, then make use of the insights of INdirect doxastic voluntarism, and surround yourself with apologetical and believing material that can get your to be more open to believing Christianity and the Gospel.
// So there's nothing I can do.//
Ultimately, but not proximately. Proximately, you CAN do the things described above.
// Do you think God predestined my suppression that I wouldn't believe?//
Neither of us knows whether God has predestined you to be unregenerate at the present or not. Even if you are presently unregenerate, you might become regenerate sometime afterwards (say, 1 minute, or 1 day, or 1 week, or 1 month1, or 1 year later).
// So if God predestined my unbelief, am I still free to choose God? //
See above.
// If I'm not one of God's elect, there's nothing I can do to become a Christian. //
Correct. But you don't know that you're non-elect. So, see above.
CONT.
// So you could have chosen a different god?//
DeleteI haven't seen the video, so I don't know that context of this question.
// You had no choice.//
You can make choices. You have no ultimate choice in yourself to accept God, but you can makes choices described above that might lead to your salvation. Because of that, one cannot use the doctrine of predestination as an excuse not to seek God.
// You're a pawn, you're like a robot. We are pawns in a chess game. You are just a cog in a machine.//
As Steve pointed out, "Does predestination make us pawns in a chess game? Like analogies in general, the comparison is partly true and partly false. God is the chess player who has a game plan. We do everything in accordance with his game plan." Chess pieces aren't sentient, while humans are. So, there's that disanalogy. You should exercise your mind and will in the ways described above.
// Is it my fault if I can't control my desires?//
Yes, just as Augustine said, "For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost."
By free will here I take it to mean moral ability. That's distinct from the more metaphysical and philosophical issues of freewill in the sense of libertarian vs. compatibilist views of freedom.
// You're saying that in my dead-in-sins fallen nature I can ask God to do things for me.//
I don't know the context of this question, but the answer is yes. Since non-regenerate folks can pray as explained above.
// I define freewill this way: the ability to do otherwise//
That's not the only way to define freewill. Most Calvinists definite it compatibilistic ways, as opposed to libertarian ways.
// Independent of God can I desire God?//
No. That's why you should strive to choose to be dependent on God. It does no use to say that you can't do that because you're dead in sin; since it has already been pointed out that God can ultimately save you through both an initially unregenerate and/or regenerate seeking after God.
// Internal critique: I can set my worldview aside and put it on the shelf and I can enter your worldview and analyze it.//
I don't know the context of the statement, but you can see the internal consistencies and inconsistencies of other worldviews intellectually, but not necessarily existentially. Only the regenerate can existentially perceive the FULL consistency of Christianity. But that's not to say that non-Christians can at least see the intellectual and rational consistency of Christianity. Non-Christians can, though often stubbornly refuse to do so.
// This is why I think Calvinism is terrible. It forces you to enter into this cognitive dissonance. //
Skipped because I don't know the context of the statement and because as a Calvinist I disagree with it.
// Is there any chance you're deceived about your eternal salvation?//
Yes, it's possible for an unregenerate person as well as a reprobate to be deceived about his eternal salvation. An unregenerate person might still be among the elect, and therefore might still be saved later. Therefore, just because you've been deceived in the past about your salvation doesn't give you reason to stop seeking your salvation. If you find a desire in yourself to be saved, then apply the protocols mentioned above.
CONT.
// Could you say without any doubt that you're going to heaven? 100% certain you're going to heaven?//
DeleteCalvinists are in disagreement as to whether and to what extent one can know with infallible certainty whether he/she is in a salvific state. Nevertheless, Calvinists agree that assurance of salvation is not "of the essence of faith". Meaning, one doesn't have to have a strong subjective assurance [epistemically] one is saved to actually be saved [ontologically]. It's possible for a doubting Christian to really be saved, just as it's possible for a false convert to genuinely have a strong sense of being in a salvific state (but be sincerely incorrect and/or deceived).
//But [if I] don't believe today, was I deceived back then?//
I don't know the context of this statement. But if it's in the context of an atheist who used to be a Christian, then the answer can go either way. You might have been deceived into thinking you were regenerate when you actually weren't. OR you could have been regenerate, and you're still regenerate and your apostasy might be temporary. Meaning, you'll eventually return to Christianity since God always (or at least usually) brings a backslidden Christian back into a believing state prior to death.
// Two years from now I could completely turn around in my beliefs and ultimately I could be one of God's elect.//
If a person truly believes in the Christian God, then he has always been elect. Even if he was a false convert earlier in his life.
// Even though I could blaspheme the Holy Spirit right now.//
Christians are in disagreement regarding what constitutes blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The popular Christian response that I think makes (at least pastoral and practical) sense is to tell people who fear they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit that if they have that fear, then they possibly (probably?) haven't committed that sin, and so they should seek to be reconciled to God through Christ. Since, if they did commit that particular sin of blasphemy, they would likely not have any fear or remorse for having committed it. The emphasis in the Bible and the New Testament (both quantitatively and qualitatively) is in our responsibility to appropriate the blessings of the Gospel through faith, and the sufficiency of God's grace and Christ's atonement to save the greatest of sinners. The emphasis is not on the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That sin is revealed partly for the purpose of encouraging people to accept God's provision of salvation in Christ.
Question for Steve or other fellow Calvinists:
ReplyDeleteIs it coherent for a Calvinist to say that God could retroactively answer a prayer for one to be numbered among elect so long as God foreordained that prayer itself? That is, in God's necessary/natural knowledge to the exclusion of His free knowledge [and alleged middle knowledge by Molinists]?
What do you mean by "coherent"? If you meant only that there would not be a contradiction in saying that, then yes. Or that there might be a larger complete and consistent story to tell about that where it could - in some sense - be true that God retrospectively answers a prayer to be numbered among the elect? Even that description I just gave - of there being a larger complete and consistent story - is super vague. Suppose you took the view that God did not have to save humanity; so think of a world (I assume you are fine with world-speak given your pointer to Molinists) in which A&E sin, they get evicted from the garden and go on to live in a pretty miserable world until God turns off the lights. If so, you think non-incarnation worlds are possible (another horrible word here!). But you might also then wonder whether there are worlds in which God allows people into heaven on the basis of works, or some specific work(s). It doesn't even have to be for people like us in every way. What eternal life looks like in that scenario might be different too. OK. Now if you followed that line and thought, yes, in some sense this is coherent, then you can say it is coherent that God foreordained someone to pray that God had ordained oneself (the pray-er) to be among the elect because someone made that prayer. That is, the future act of prayer is God's reason for the election.
DeleteI know you said this is a "Calvinist" asking this question, which is why I said it depends on what is meant by "coherent." I think you intend us to build in assumptions about the world (or better: universe), who is in it, what acts in history we have to account. That is, you are not asking about possible worlds in the widest sense; we are to hold fixed a bunch of other things we know about the actual world. Doing that, then I'd say there no such coherent story for the Calvinist. If the Calvinist line is about how people like us in our moral condition (speaking for humanity as a whole here) are saved and we hold that fixed, then there is no faith by works. And it seems to me that if God's reason for numbering one among the elect is a future action by the person, then that strikes me as a violation of sola fide. I also think it is probably not consistent with God acting for good reasons; I don't have a knock-down argument for this claim. There is also a worry I have about circular explanation. Why is one praying something that God gives one a positive stance with respect to salvation? Answer: Because God regenerated one (suppose). But why did God regenerate that person? Answer: Because God elected that person to have a positive stance with respect to salvation. But why did God elect a person to have a positive stance with respect to salvation? Answer: Because one is praying something that God gives one a positive stance with respect to salvation.I don't think this sort of circularity concern generalizes to all retroactive prayer.
I said coherent for a Calvinist, in the sense of whether it would be in keeping with or violate Calvinist theology in general and soteriology in particular. The reason I ask is with the hope of being able to tell non-Christian objectors to Calvinistic Christianity that they can pray to God to elect them.
Delete//But you might also then wonder whether there are worlds in which God allows people into heaven on the basis of works, or some specific work(s). It doesn't even have to be for people like us in every way.//
Presumably, God allows angels to remain in heaven and in His presence because they maintain their moral integrity (likely fixed by God at some point after the fall of the other angels).
Regarding your second paragraph, you've persuaded me that it seems unlikely that a Calvinist can consistently tell non-Christians to pray/ask for their election. Though, presumably, you agree with me that a Calvinist can consistently tell non-Christians to pray/ask God to save them.